A dark humor pervades the halls of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a leading local rights group headquartered in Cairo's leafy Garden City district. Amid rows of tightly clustered desks, members rib each other about being out of a job soon or joke about taking pictures of the office to preserve the memories of their work there. Yet beneath the jocularity lies a palpable sense of foreboding.

Civil society groups across Egypt are braced for a crackdown in the wake of a November 10 government deadline to submit to regulations that give the state tight control over their activities and fundraising or face penalties that include up to a year in prison.

A resurgent authoritarianism under the rule of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has left dissident activists and opposition groups feeling cornered, with little room to maneuver. Security forces have killed hundreds of demonstrators and jailed thousands more, many of them supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. Leading revolutionaries are locked up. A sense of malaise plagues activist circles, with energies largely spent on supporting and advocating for the thousands of people in prison, most of them young. Street demonstrations — once a vibrant and effective political tool — have been shut down by police violence and a draconian protest law. The airwaves are dominated by pro-regime figures who demonize any critical voices, while journalists have been beaten, arrested and, in one high-profile case, sentenced to years in prison on terrorism charges.

Now, human rights groups feel their time has come.

In July, the government announced a deadline for all civil society groups to officially register under a restrictive Mubarak-era law. Law 84 of 2002 gives the state sweeping authority over staffing decisions, activities and funding. Under the Mubarak regime, many independent NGOs chose to register as companies or law firms to avoid the law's restrictions. While they faced intimidation, censorship and occasional arrests, their existence was largely tolerated.

Human rights defenders say that era has come to an end.

"I don't think we will continue to exist in six months the same way we exist today," Abdel Razek says. His group, EIPR, is currently registered as a limited liability, for-profit company that pays its income taxes and social security. "I think this model will not live for very long."

A further cause for alarm was Sisi's move last month to amend Article 78 of the penal code to impose a life sentence against anyone who requests or receives foreign funding with the intention of "harming national interests" or commits acts that "breach the country's independence, or unity" — vague language that NGOs, particularly human rights groups, fear could be used against them.

After Mubarak's ouster, groups like EIPR flourished, gaining access to funding from abroad to hire some of the best and brightest local rights advocates and lawyers. EIPR tripled in size, going from two dozen employees in 2011 to more than seventy-five. The new, broad phrasing in Article 78 means that the group will have to forgo any foreign funding in the future, Abdel Razek says, as the pool of resources available for rights advocacy is drained by the regime.

Earlier this month, al-Mawred al-Thaqafy (Culture Resource), a successful organization supporting artists and cultural activities, announced it was ending all operations in Egypt. It did not provide a reason behind its decision, saying only that it "hopes the conditions will change to allow resuming its activities in Egypt as soon as possible." Yet the timing of the announcement prompted many to point to the state noose tightening around civil society.

Successive governments since Mubarak's overthrow in 2011 have sought to introduce new legislation regulating NGOs to replace Law 84. In June, a draft appeared that alarmed rights groups for allowing security agencies even greater powers to oversee the fundraising and activities of civil society and imposing harsher penalties for non-compliance.

Fears of an impending crackdown were further stoked by Sisi's appointment of Faiza Aboul Naga, a Mubarak-era stalwart, as his national security adviser. At the end of 2011, as a cabinet minister in the military-led transitional government, Aboul Naga spearheaded a campaign against NGOs in which the government not only raided and shut down ten Egyptian and American organizations but issued arrest warrants, sparking a crisis with Washington.

The Sisi government denies it is cracking down on NGOs and claims it is merely asking for groups to be properly registered under the law. "We want them to come forward and announce what they're doing because we believe in transparency," says Minister of Social Solidarity Ghada Wali, who oversees NGOs. "There is a big concern in the public around the role of civil society organizations and about the abuse and misuse of funds by some," she says. "As long as they're not doing anything that is illegal, why should they be worried?"

Yet groups that work to shine a spotlight on government wrongdoing, documenting abuses like police brutality and corruption, feel they are now in the crosshairs. Human rights defenders have been the target of a vilification campaign by state and private media, which continually portray them as disloyal Egyptians doing the bidding of outside forces to undermine the regime and tarnish the country's reputation.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous is an independent journalist based in Cairo. For eight years he served as a senior producer, co-host, and correspondent for Democracy Now! and he remains a frequent contributor to the program. Originally from Cairo, he returned to Egypt in 2011 to cover the Egyptian revolution. He has written for The Natio...

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